


Sleep when you can

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Chloroform Shortage, Doctors & Physicians, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Mansion House, Nurses & Nursing, Romance, Season 1, Trauma, poor Cheesebro, post-operative, widows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 20:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16583972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: A shortage of chloroform isn't a death sentence. But it isn't lightly borne.





	Sleep when you can

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [yet apt the verse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16559687) by [tortoiseshells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells). 



Mary knew she would have fallen if Jed hadn’t caught her, his arm around her waist the moment she stumbled on the step. He was stronger than she might have thought, balancing out her weight without seeming the least unsteady himself. The fall to the floor below might have broken her neck, if she’d been lucky. 

“Mary?” Jed said, not following her name with any other question, but his dark eyes asked them all. The patience was unlike him and she didn’t care to test it.

“It’s nothing,” she said quickly, but his arm didn’t drop away as they climbed the last few stairs. Nor as he shepherded her to an alcove on the landing, where some worn velvet chairs kept company by the long windows. “It’s nothing,” she repeated, but he must feel how she trembled. He could not fail to see how her hand reached for the chair’s sturdy back and missed, her hand very white against the drab upholstery.

“Mary. Tell me the truth. What’s the matter?”

“I’m only tired, I suppose,” she said. She’d been up since dawn—the day before. The day before had been the day they discovered the chloroform shortage, the day Private Cheesebro had his life saved in a surgery that nearly killed him. Afterwards, the morphine Jed injected had given the young man some surcease from his misery and the memory of it, but Mary had not been able to sleep, kept up by the recollection of his screams, nightmares of his shrieking agony waking her as soon as she dozed off. It was his face she saw and Gustav’s, it was Jed’s face in his withdrawal, screaming at her for mercy, _have mercy stop, Gott in Himmel, please Mary, no!_ She hadn’t woken with the dawn; it had found her waiting, bundled in an old shawl, her eyes shadowed. Cold had limned every bone, every nerve. She had laid her cheek against the windowpane and found it familiar.

“I’ve seen you, you’ve been fatigued before—you’re never been like this,” Jed replied, unwilling to accept her answer. But he was not challenging her with his usual cutting wit, no teasing riposte forthcoming. There was such a softness in his tone, such a warmth in his expression and in the hand that still rested on her waist. Even through her bodice and corset, she could feel him, keeping her close.

“I suppose—Private Cheesebro, he must have reminded me of someone from home. I didn’t sleep well…I had such dreams,” she said slowly, unable to look at him as she spoke. Her weakness was a blessing; she would have had to stop him if she’d noticed, but she’d closed her eyes, the echo of the night overwhelming—until Jed moved and took her into his embrace, both arms wrapped around her. Her face was laid against his chest, the wool of his jacket rough, the scent of him, the cigar he’d smoked, a faint herbal cologne he must use, his skin, more present than the memory of the boy’s screams, of her husband’s gasping cries. His own cursed inveighing against her, his bitter tears.

“Hush. Hush now,” he said, even more softly. It was as if they had argued and she’d wept and now they found themselves seeking a reconciliation. She felt him move to stroke her hair, careful not to undo the braided chignon. How gentle his hands were—when they did not wield a knife. If she moved away, just a little, to regard him, he would see her face turned up to his, her lips parted and her eyes apprehensive, longing. She kept her cheek against his breast, where his heart beat was regular. She let the sound of it soothe her, take her from the precipice of a faint, remind her that horrors had surcease.

“I mustn’t,” she began, a few moments later, her sense of her position and his, the windows shining black with night and the faint glow of candles around the cracks of doorframes insisting whatever was between them needed to end.

“Oh, Mary. Allow me this, allow me once to be the one who only brings comfort,” Jed said, his baritone voice rough, earnest, young. “He screamed all night for me as well. Let me have something else to dream about. Please,” he said, loosening his hold on her but not letting her go. She stood quite still and there was the light touch of his lips on the crown on her head, at her temple. She stood quite still and thought they would both dream the night away. When each woke, confused, reaching for the other, the bed, narrow or wide, would be empty, and each would wonder if the soft cry they heard was the terrified boy or the eager, hopeful lover they could not have.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and thanks to tortoiseshells for her story which inspired this follow-up. Hers was richly historically detailed; what mine offers is a hearty dose of Phoster angst/tenderness. Perhaps someone else will follow-up with Emma's walk home with Henry.
> 
> Title from Melville.


End file.
